Trauma and the Body: When the Nervous System Remembers What the Mind Cannot Forget
Trauma is not solely a cognitive and emotional experience. It is encoded in the body — in somatic responses, autonomic nervous system dysregulation, and physical symptoms that can persist long after the traumatic event. Bessel van der Kolk's formulation that the body keeps the score of traumatic experience points to the way traumatic memories are stored differently from ordinary autobiographical memory: not primarily as narratives that can be recalled and retold, but as somatic patterns — bodily sensations, emotional states, and behavioural responses — that are triggered by cues related to the original experience. This somatic encoding explains why talking about trauma does not always produce relief and may even intensify distress in some presentations, while body-based therapies that address the encoding directly can produce change that talking alone does not.
Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory provides a neurobiological framework for understanding how trauma dysregulates the autonomic nervous system. The theory proposes that the autonomic nervous system has three hierarchically organised states: the social engagement system (ventral vagal activation, the default state in safety), mobilisation (sympathetic activation, the fight-or-flight response), and immobilisation (dorsal vagal shutdown, the freeze-collapse response). Trauma is understood as producing activation of the defensive states that then becomes dysregulated — persisting or re-activating in the absence of actual danger, when the person encounters trauma-related triggers in daily life.
The somatic expressions of unresolved trauma are varied and often not immediately recognised as related to traumatic experience. They include chronic muscle tension and pain; altered breathing patterns; digestive disturbance (the gut-brain axis connects the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system, meaning that autonomic dysregulation affects gut function); sensory hypersensitivity or numbness; and the rapid oscillation between sympathetically activated and dorsally shutdown states that characterises chronic trauma dysregulation. Physical symptoms that have been investigated medically without explanation are sometimes expressions of autonomic dysregulation produced by unresolved trauma.
Peter Levine's somatic experiencing approach is based on the observation that animals responding to threat naturally complete their defensive responses — shaking, trembling, or completing the thwarted movement — while human responses are often interrupted by shame, social constraint, or conscious inhibition. The interrupted defensive response remains as held energy that produces somatic symptoms. Somatic experiencing works with small doses of body sensation (the titration principle) to facilitate the completion of interrupted defensive responses. The window of tolerance — the range of arousal within which the person can process experience without being overwhelmed — is expanded through this work, building the capacity to tolerate traumatic activation gradually.
Body-focused trauma therapies include somatic experiencing, sensorimotor psychotherapy, and trauma-focused yoga. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) also engages somatic processing through bilateral stimulation. These approaches are most relevant for trauma presentations with significant somatic expression — chronic pain, digestive symptoms, sensory hypersensitivity, or somatic re-experiencing that has not responded to talk-based approaches. The BACP directory (bacp.co.uk) lists somatic and trauma-focused therapists; the Somatic Experiencing International website (traumahealing.org) lists somatic experiencing practitioners. Maia, the AI companion in Asclepiad, offers space to understand what the body is holding and why.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Asclepiad designed for trauma and the body?
Asclepiad is well-suited to understanding the somatic dimension of trauma, polyvagal theory, the body-keeps-the-score framework, and the body-focused therapies. For structured support: the BACP directory (bacp.co.uk) for somatic and trauma therapists; Somatic Experiencing International (traumahealing.org) for SE practitioners; and EMDR Association UK (emdrassociation.org.uk) for EMDR practitioners.
What if I am in crisis?
Asclepiad is not a crisis service. If you are in immediate distress or at risk to yourself or someone else, please contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (free, 24/7, UK and Ireland) or your local emergency services. Maia will also surface local helplines if something needs more than reflection.
Is it free?
Yes — begin with a 7-day free trial, no personal details required. Use AsclepiCoins after that: pay for what you use, nothing expires.
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